Senate report may fault JPMorgan executives in trading loss: NYT

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A woman walks past JP Morgan Chase's international headquarters on Park Avenue in New York July 13, 2012. REUTERS/Andrew Burton

(Reuters) - A senate committee, which began an inquiry into JPMorgan’s (JPM.N) multi-billion dollar trading loss last year, is expected to fault certain executives in its report for allowing the bank to build bets without fully warning regulators and investors, the New York Times reported, citing people briefed on the inquiry.

The U.S. Senate Permanent Committee on Investigations could ask Douglas Braunstein, who was chief financial officer at the time of the losses, and other senior executives to testify at a hearing this month, the people told the paper. The Senate committee’s report is due to be released on March 15.

JPMorgan, which has been cooperating with the investigation and discussed the findings with the subcommittee, declined to comment to the New York Times.

Braunstein and other bank executives have not been accused of any wrongdoing, and he is not the focus of a separate law enforcement investigation into the trading loss, according to the paper.

Last year, JPMorgan lost $6 billion in trading bets that came from a group called the Chief Investment Office (CIO), which managed risk for the bank and invested deposits.

The CIO group in London took large bets on derivatives, with one trader taking big enough positions to be called “the London Whale.” (Reporting by Sakthi Prasad in Bangalore; Editing by Richard Pullin)